Understanding
by Silver Butterfly 111
Summary: Peridot has trouble adjusting to life on Earth and Steven tries to make things easier for her by offering to take her to school with him but her interactions with humans set a chain of unforseen events into motion.
1. Chapter 1

_What do you think you're doing?_

 _Defective_

 _Broken_

 _Malfunctioning._

"Peridot why are you muttering under your breath?" The Steven asked.

"Because this device is defective." Peridot hissed as she tried another search term.

"No, it's not." Steven replied with a laugh.

"I fail to see the humor of this situation." Peridot grumbled. "Your earthling technology is simply archaic." She slammed the laptop shut and drummed her fingers on the sleek surface of the lid in an attempt to release some of her frustrated energy. "I tried for hours and even your extensive. 'Internet' doesn't have any information on how to build myself new limb enhancers."

"Because humans don't know about Gem tech and limb enhancers. You nerd." Amethyst laughed.

Peridot rolled her eyes and muttered incoherently under her breath. "I gathered." Peridot glared at the laptop. "I'm going to take that away from you before you decide to murder it." Steven said as he tentatively reached across the table and slid the laptop toward him.

"It is impossible to murder an inanimate object." Peridot said matter-of-factly. Amethyst groaned under her breath. "Why do you talk like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like you're some sort of robot."

"Because I have a higher level of intellect." Peridot said, folding her arms with a very smug look on her face. Amethyst growled. "Look, I know you apologized for calling me defective, but the way I see it we're both short so I'll have no trouble smashing your face into the ground if you keep getting on my nerves."

"Guys quit trying to kill each other." Steven protested.

Peridot exhaled slowly. "Steven is right, killing each other would violate our truce agreement."

Amethyst shrugged her shoulders. "You know me, I like smashing stuff."

"Well try not to smash each other while I'm at school." Steven said grabbing his backpack and heading to the door. Peridot turned her attention away from Amethyst at the sound of this new term. "What is this school you speak of?" Peridot asked with interest. Amethyst groaned again. "That's it, I'm out I can only handle so much nerdiness, it might start to rub off. See you guys later." She said before she walked to the warp pad and teleported out of the house.

"What is school?" Peridot asked again.

"It's where people go to learn things." Steven explained.

"I'm curious, can I come with you to learn more about your human culture." Steven considered. "I don't see why not." He said after a moment of thought. "What could possibly go wrong?" He added.

 **Oh famous last words.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Two chapters in one day? *gasp* what is this witchcraft?**

"I give you, every word known to the human race." Steven said sitting down at a table in the school library with an extremely thick dictionary in his arms he let it fall on to the table with a very loud _thump_. The table shook. Peridot looked at the book with mild interest. "You can stay here while I go to my classes, that way less people will see you, not very many people come here."

"Why?"

"Most human kids don't like libraries." Steven admitted. "Stay here, it's safer I'll check on you in between classes, okay?" Peridot nodded in response, Steven stood up and walked toward the door.

His first class was Engineering and Technology, it had been Pearl's idea to enroll him in the class and even though he admitted that it was interesting he couldn't help think that it was boring. The teacher; a middle-aged man who looked similar to Steven's dad was standing at the front of the class rambling about different types of wires and ways to treat and prevent electrical shocks.. Steven wasn't paying attention and was texting Connie while trying to make it look like he was taking notes.

He felt something bump up against his leg and he looked underneath the table and found Peridot sitting underneath the table with her legs pulled up against her chest. "What are you doing here?" Steven hissed under his breath. "Paying attention." Peridot replied matter-of-factly. "You're not supposed to be here, most people don't know about Gems..People in Beach City are used to seeing, Garnet Amethyst and Pearl but they haven't seen you before and they'll start asking questions about where you came from and if you tell them the wrong thing they could get really scared and hurt you." Steven explained.

Peridot waved her hand dismissively. Steven moaned in frustration. "Okay, fine but don't say I didn't warn you." He said, turning his attention back to his phone which was trying to send an text to Connie. 'message failed to send.' "No," Steven complained.

"What's wrong?" Peridot asked curiously. "My phone isn't working, I've been meaning to ask Pearl to fix it but I keep forgetting." "May I see it?" Peridot reached out her hand from under the table. Steven handed over the device and Peridot crawled out from under the table and kneeled on the chair next to Steven. "What are you doing?" Steven asked, slightly panicked. "It's darker under the table I can see what I'm doing better if I'm up here."

Peridot turned the cell phone over and opened the back so that she could reach the wires. "Steven, would you like to introduce us to your friend?" The teacher asked walking over to stand in front of the desk. "I-uh-she's visiting for a while." Steven replied unsure of what else to say. Peridot was oblivious to the conversation and was too absorbed in rearranging the cellphone's wires.

She muttered to herself and the gem on her forehead began to glow, a thin, round quarter-sized object fell into her palm and she removed the phone's backup memory card and replaced it with the strange device. Steven glanced at the teacher nervously. _Please don't ask what just happened._

"What does that thing do?" Steven asked Peridot trying to pretend that the teacher wasn't there. Peridot put the panel back in so that the wires were hidden. She pressed the call button on the phone and a holographic picture of Connie projected out of the camera lense. "Steven? Why are you calling me? You know I'm in class." The hologram Connie said. Another voice came from somewhere else. "Connie, you put that phone away this instant before I take it to the office and tell your mother about this incident." "I have to go." The hologram Connie dissolved into the air.

Peridot shut the phone with a snap and handed back to Steven. The teacher stared at Peridot with an open mouth. "Unbelievable! How'd you do that?" Peridot regarded the man with a superior expression. "Turns out holographic projectors are compatible with your simple-minded technology. I wasn't sure it would work at first but I like experimenting." The teacher looked like a giddy child. "You and I will have to talk sometime." Peridot looked nervous and glanced at Steven. "I don't think that's such a good idea sir, she doesn't really like partner discussions she's very attached to her opinions and doesn't really understand how stuff works around here." The teacher nodded in understanding. "Alright." the teacher moved away from the desk and continued with his lecture.

"I thought I told you to stay in the library."

"Yes,"

"Why didn't you?"

"Because I finished reading the dictionary and I wanted to see what you were doing."

"I told you to stay in the library." Steven complained.

"You want me to learn about the human culture without human interaction? That seems contradicting."

"Peridot it could be dangerous." Although Steven admitted that Peridot had a point. "It would be easier for me to keep an eye on you though."

Peridot smiled in triumph.

Steven sat down at the lunch table and began to eat his french fries, Peridot tried not to pay attention to the disgusting action known as 'eating' and looked around the noisy and crowded lunchroom. "So this is how humans socialize?" Steven swallowed another fry and nodded in response and Peridot continued to examine their surroundings. "Someone's coming." Steven looked up curiously. "Oh, Hey Ronaldo." Steven said in a friendly tone. Ronaldo wasn't paying attention to Steven though, he was focused on Peridot.

"There's another one?" He asked in shock. Peridot glared at him. "Excuse me?" "Another polymorphic sentient rock!" Ronaldo said his voice raised in excitement, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and took a picture. Peridot blinked against the flash. "This is going on my blog." He began to rapidly type on his phone keypad. Steven looked at Ronaldo uneasily, this was what he'd been hoping to avoid. "Ronaldo are you sure that's a good idea?" The older boy stopped typing. "Of, course how come I didn't think of this sooner, why have a picture when you can have video." Ronaldo sat himself between Steven and Peridot and held his phone so close to Peridot's face that Steven wouldn't be surprised if the footage was extremely blurry.

Peridot didn't appreciate this extremely loud and nosy human. "Is your kind planning an invasion?" Peridot rolled her eyes, Ronaldo didn't seem to notice the annoyed reaction. Steven bit his lip nervously. This wasn't going to end well.

"Why would I tell you such things?" Peridot asked, genuinely confused. Ronaldo only heard what he wanted to. "So, you are planning to invade!" "Do you have current contact with the Mothership?" Ronaldo asked franticly. "Do you mean Yellow Dia-." Peridot glanced at Steven who had started to make frantic motions with his hands while mouthing the word 'stop' Peridot snapped her mouth shut. Ronaldo made a frustrated noise. . Ronaldo grabbed her shoulders and started to shake her violently in a desperate attempt to get information from her. "Get your touch stubs off of me before I smack you." Peridot threatened. Ronaldo quickly removed his hands from her shoulders. Steven tapped Ronaldo's shoulder and the older boy turned his attention away from Peridot. "Ronaldo go and bug someone else." Steven made a lame attempt to get the other boy to leave.

Peridot saw that Steven's attempt was going to be less than successful so she decided to take the matter into her own hands. She stood up on the table bench and glared at Ronaldo trying to make her voice sound as mechanical as possible. "Threat detected. Mission compromised. Prepare for annihilation." Ronaldo screamed and jumped up from the bench. He looked at Steven in panic. "You didn't tell me it was hostile!" " 'It' has a name." Peridot replied. Ronaldo backed away slowly, clutching his phone as if it would somehow protect him. "Do not meddle in my affairs human." Peridot said in a flat voice. Ronaldo ran.

Peridot sat back down on the bench and started to laugh. "Did you see his face? As if I could do anything...I mean I could but it's not like I would." Steven wasn't laughing and Peridot glanced at him, wondering why he didn't look amused. "That wasn't funny Peridot, you really scared him."

"But, you wanted him to leave."

"Well, yeah but I didn't want to scare him, no one believes the stuff he puts on his blog anyway but he believes that kind of stuff so whatever you would have told him he would have started to investigate more and if he found actual proof of what you were people would take you away."

Peridot began to get very scared, _What had she just done?_ She stood up and backed slowly out of the lunchroom looking around in panic. _Everyone was a potential enemy._ "Peridot wait, I didn't mean for it to sound like that." Peridot was already gone.

 **Oh no.**


	3. Chapter 3

_How could you not have thought of this sooner?_ She ran and ran as fast as her legs would let her. She reached the house and burst through the door. She heard the door thump against the wall with a loud bang and she jumped at the sound. She hated it here. Everything was too strange and loud and she understood none it. She'd been programed to understand things. But this was too much.

She was programmed to understand and the fact that she still didn't know how this planet functioned was a sign that she was losing productivity. She'd messed up and now humans would hunt her down and hurt her in attempts to understand how she functioned. She ran toward the Temple door and stood in front of it.

A little tiny censor came out of the door and scanned her Gem, the censor disappeared into the door again and the door swung open and Peridot's own recorded voice said "Access. Granted." Peridot disappeared into the room beyond the door and the door slammed shut. She was safe here.

Steven collapsed face first onto the floor of his house and panted while trying to regain his breath. After a minute or two he sat up and looked around. Peridot wasn't anywhere in the room. He really hoped that she'd gone here instead of deciding to run off somewhere else. He should have known better than to take her to such a strange place as school, she was trying so hard to understand things that she'd overanalyzed things. He felt really bad for her. She'd only been on Earth for a few months at most. Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl had been on Earth for thousands of years and even _they_ didn't understand everything yet.

"Peridot?" He yelled through the house. He walked toward the temple door, maybe one of the Crystal Gems was inside and would come out to see why he was yelling, it would take less time to find Peridot if they were all looking.

He stood next to the door and waited patiently. The little censor revealed itself and scanned his forehead. Peridot's voice seemed to come from nowhere. "No Gem detected in proper location. Access: Denied" Steven raised his eyebrow. He didn't know that Peridot had made herself a room in the Temple. "Peridot? Can I come in?" The censor disappeared into the door and there was nothing to tell Steven that Peridot had heard him or was even listening to him. He sighed heavily and sat down with his back against the Temple door. It seemed an eternity before another sound came from out of nowhere. "Security system manually deactivated. Access: Granted." Steven fell backwards as the door opened suddenly.

He scrambled backwards quickly as the door started to shut again. He looked up in awe, the room was decorated in tones of black and green and was lit dimly with black lights that made his pink and yellow shirt glow in the dark, the lights themselves were attached to the ceiling and gave off purple splashes of light. Screws and other little bits and pieces of machines were scattered everywhere, the black desk that rested against one of the walls was covered in pieces of notebook paper crammed with notes. There was a bed that took up the wall across from the desk although Steven wasn't sure why it was there. Gems didn't need sleep and Peridot was possibly the one gem who didn't see any point in the concept whatsoever.

Peridot was curled up on the corner of the bed, she didn't look at Steven and was instead staring at her hands which rested in her lap. "This place is cool." Steven said trying to find something that would start a conversation. Peridot shrugged her shoulders and said nothing. "Where'd you get all of this stuff?" Another shrug. Steven sighed and tried a more straightforward approach. "Are you okay?" Peridot shook her head slowly. Steven waited a minute but it didn't seem as if she was going to speak so he turned toward the door. Maybe she just needed time to be alone.

"I don't understand." Peridot's voice sounded small even though there was no one else in the room besides them. Steven turned to face her. "That's okay-"

"No, it's not I'm supposed to understand. I was _made_ to understand." Steven shook his head. "Peridot no one expects you to understand everything all at once."

" _I_ expect myself to!"

"But you don't have to. The Crystal Gems have been on Earth for thousands of years and they don't understand sometimes. I've lived on Earth all my life and _I_ don't understand." Peridot clenched her fists in frustration. "Maybe..I should just go back to Homeworld." She said softly.

"What?! Why would you want to do that, you'll be in trouble, they'll wonder why it took you so long and if you tell them that you tried to help us stop the Cluster, if they find out they'll hurt you!"

"Yes, but at least I understand how things work there...It's my home Steven and I know it might seem irrational but I miss it sometimes." She said nothing after that but Steven didn't want to leave her alone so he made himself comfortable on the floor. Despite thinking sleep was useless Peridot stretched herself out on the bed and closed her eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

**Who's ready for a dream-rant flashback? \\(*-*)/**

 **Soundtrack: Hello- Adele**

Signal Lost. Memory Recovery Failed. No Data Retrieved.

 _Peridot grumbled in annoyance, the grumbles turned into slight screams. She debated throwing the keyboard at the static-filled screen. How on Earth had she lost the contact with another robonoid?! "Peridot? Are you okay?" Chrysolite's voice was soft and tentative, the way one might speak to an angry cat, Peridot had heard about cats: Relatively small Earth animals, covered in fur, reclusive and very temperamental. Equipped with sharp teeth and claws. Peridot bit her lip, now she was thinking of cats? She had to focus on her task and that was retrieving data from Earth, only she COULDN'T because her robonoids kept malfunctioning for some unknown reason. She hated being faced with unknown complications, they interfered with her productivity, and when productivity levels dropped, Yellow Diamond asked questions._

 _Chrysolite walked over and looked over Peridot's shoulder at the static on the screen. "Is everything okay? It's been doing that a lot lately, do you know what's wrong with it?" Peridot sighed. "No I don't know what's wrong with it!" Peridot hissed. Hissing: Another habit exhibited by cats to show irritation and displeasure. Peridot moaned. "I need to go and report this to Yellow Diamond and get another robonoid from the storage units." Peridot muttered. Chrysolite followed Peridot out of the room, both of them abandoning their work for the time being._

 _Peridot watched as the Pearls ran around carrying out their various tasks. She couldn't help but feel a twinge of envy as she looked at their long, slender builds. True most of them had slight physical deformities that made her feel a little better about herself. She looked down at her own short feet and scowled in displeasure. She forgot about the robonoid for the moment, another question wormed its way into her brain._

" _Why would you want me to do that?" Yellow Diamond demanded. "What use do you have for longer limbs?" "I don't know I just thought that-" "Beauty is impractical, Pearls are made the way they are for aesthetic reasons only. Am I clear?" "Yes." Peridot turned and left the room._

 _Chrysolite fell into step with Peridot and the two Gems walked away from Yellow Diamond's room. "What did she do this time?" Chrysolite asked in an irritated tone when she noticed Peridot's glum expression. Peridot looked at the other Gem. She viewed Chrysolite as something like a sister, they confessed things to each other that they didn't trust anyone else to know. They were both gifted technicians and had been created for similar purposes It seemed only logical that they confided in each other. Chrysolite was slightly taller than Peridot but their skin was a similar color although Chrysolite's skin was slightly transparent like a crystal._

" _She didn't do anything Chrysi." Peridot replied flatly. Chrysolite rolled her eyes. "Your face wouldn't look like that if she did nothing." "My face looks like this because she did nothing." Peridot snapped irritably. Chrysolite stopped walking and turned to face Peridot head on, The slightly taller gem grabbed Peridot gently by the shoulders."Tell me." Chrysi insisted softly. Peridot exhaled slowly._

" _I asked her if she would make me taller." Chrysi blinked in surprise. "That's what this is about?" Chrysi started to giggle. "What!?" Peridot demanded, although she herself had to admit that now she'd said the words out loud they did sound petty. "Why in the name of Homeworld would you care about a thing like that?" Chrysi tried to stop laughing and look like she was trying to take this seriously. "I don't know, it just doesn't seem fair that the Pearls get to be tall and pretty." Chrysi's last dying laughter was cut short. She looked scandalized. "You want to be like a Pearl!?" Peridot clapped a hand over her friend's mouth. "No. I just want to feel bigger, I want to make someone feel proud of me." Now Chrysi looked personally offended and she turned away from Peridot and resumed walking at a quicker, clipped pace._

 _Peridot ran to catch up. Chrysi spoke without looking at Peridot. "By 'someone' You mean Yellow Diamond." Peridot looked at Chrysolite's back in confusion. "Yes." Peridot realized what effect the word had on Chrysi when she saw the other Gem's back go rigid. "And you think being taller will help?" Chrysolite's voice was bizarrely calm. "I'm not sure." Peridot admitted. "You shouldn't care so much about what Yellow Diamond thinks." Peridot was very confused now. "Why?" "Because- you don't need to make her proud, you're starting to lose yourself. Do you hear yourself? You never cared how tall you were before Yellow Diamond started paying attention to you." "She is our leader, I want to make her proud of me!" Peridot protested. Chrysi shook her head. "People who make you feel like you have to change in order to make them proud aren't worthy of your efforts, I'm proud of you for what you already are." Chrysi placed her hand on Peridot's shoulder, hoping that Peridot would understand but she saw the look in Peridot's eyes hadn't changed. Chrysi sighed and removed her hand from Peridot's shoulder. "I used to think that was enough for you...And now I see that I was wrong." Chrysolite turned and walked down the hallway alone._

 _Peridot had felt hurt and betrayed she'd thought that it was a good thing that she wanted to change. Be better, more efficient, more effective. She'd stayed up all night building her limb enhancers._

 _Chrysolite stood in front of the door waiting for Peridot to come and give her daily report to Yellow Diamond. The Gem had full intent to apologize but that was before she saw what Peridot had done to make herself taller she'd hoped that their discussion the day before would have made Peridot see what she was doing to herself that clearly wasn't the case. She glared at Peridot with an angry, hurt expression and stomped away without a word._

 _Peridot looked after her friend and felt a sliver of guilt for having hurt Chrysi's feelings. It was too short lived "Who needs her anyway?" Peridot asked herself in a angry tone._

 _Yellow Diamond was amused by this whole display. The Peridot was hardly handling herself professionally she was acting like a child who was trying to impress an adult with an art project as she stood and demonstrated the many different functions of her new 'limb enhancers' as she called them. "Very good." Yellow Diamond said in a flat tone cutting Peridot off mid-demonstration. The Peridot grinned. "You are dismissed." Yellow Diamond continued. Peridot frowned. "But I-." "You are dismissed." Yellow Diamond repeated. Peridot stood frozen where she was. Yellow Diamond turned to one of her Pearls. "Show her out." The Pearl stepped forward. "This way miss" Peridot glared at the Pearl and stomped out of the room. Once outside she slumped against a wall. 'You've made a fool of yourself.' she thought bitterly, she was so lost in her patronizing thoughts that she pushed herself away from the wall and Jasper bumped into her. "Watch it." Peridot snapped, she didn't really care what Jasper did to punish her and her snappish tone. She was just not in the mood to deal with anything right now. Evidently neither was Jasper._

 _The warrior Gem was still much bigger than Peridot even with the limb enhancers. Jasper slammed her back against the wall. "What you gonna do about it shrimp?" Jasper snarled. Peridot glared at the other Gem but before she could return a threat another voice interrupted. "Let her go Jasper." Jasper and Peridot turned toward the voice simultaneously. "Chrysi?" Peridot asked, confused as to why her friend would still come to her aide after their argument. "Any fight you want to pick with Peridot you can easily pick with me." Chrysolite continued. Jasper released Peridot and faced Chrysolite. "Why is it that the weak always seem to travel in packs?" Jasper questioned neither smaller Gem in particular. Peridot stepped away from Jasper and placed herself between the two as they stared at each other. Jasper just laughed. "As much as I would love beating you two into the ground I'm late reporting to Yellow Diamond," the orange and red Gem turned her back on them but not before glaring at Peridot. "This isn't over shrimp."_

" _That went better than I thought it was going to, she must be in one of her better moods" Peridot observed after Jasper had left. Chrysolite scoffed and stared at Peridot. " Jasper doesn't have a 'good' mood. She's going to murder you in your sleep." Peridot didn't want to think of that."Chrysi, look I-" Chrysolite held up her hands. "I don't want to hear it Peridot, I'll know you mean it when you throw those things away." Chrysi gestured at the limb enhancers._

 _Peridot looked at Chrysolite with a lost expression. "I'm sorry I can't- I worked too hard." Surely Chrysi would understand that part of Peridot's deliumhea. Not wanting to throw away hard work. It seemed to work to some degree._

 _Chrysolite sighed and her face softened slightly. "You're going to stay in my room tonight I don't want to leave you alone and find out that Jasper made good on her threats." Peridot nodded slowly, if she rejected this show of kindness then the rift that had grown between her and Chrysi would likely never be sealed._

 _Chrysi had long since fallen asleep. Peridot concluded that it was because the other Gem had too much to think about and didn't know what to do to decide a good enough outcome and thus her solution was not to think of anything at all at least for a little while, so the other Gem slept although she didn't have to, Peridot blamed herself for her friend's stress-at least part of it- . There was a soft knock at the door and for a moment Peridot had an irrational fear that Jasper had found her, this was just as quickly dismissed when Peridot concluded that Jasper would break the door down instead of knocking politely and in spite of herself the image of Jasper knocking down the door made Peridot giggle even if the sound was a bit less amused and a bit more deranged in nature._

 _She glanced over at the floor where Chrysi had curled herself up to sleep. There were no beds on Homeworld, no one needed such pointless objects. Chrysi hadn't responded to the knocking at the door so Peridot went to answer it._

 _A Pearl stood at the door. "Yellow Diamond requests your presence." The Pearl stated formally. Peridot looked over her shoulder at Chrysi. The Pearl began to grow impatient. "Miss, if you would please come quickly, it took me longer then expected to find you, you weren't in your usual dwelling and Yellow Diamond will want to see you as soon as possible." Peridot sighed and closed the door behind her as she stepped out into the hallway._

 _Yellow Diamond's question was simple. "What do you know about Earth?"_

 **Thus ends the dream-rant. Related note my eyes hurt from staring at the screen Completely worth it.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Peridot discovers chocolate. :)**

Peridot jolted awake, her face was damp from crying in her sleep. If that was what sleep did...Dredged up memories like that then she _never_ wanted to sleep again, Her chest felt tight. _Chrysi, oh Chrysi if I'd known I never would have left._ But none of that mattered now, she had left and now she was here on Earth and could never go back to Homeworld without facing consequences.

Peridot had obviously woken up Steven who was now looking at her with concern etched all over his face. "Are you okay? You're crying." Peridot shook her head sadly. "No Steven I'm not okay." Steven waited patiently for her to continue and suddenly she couldn't help herself, she fell apart. "Why do I try so hard?" She sobbed. Although Steven had been expecting her to say something this question surprised him. "Because that's just you- you're the kind of person who doesn't give up."

"But I don't understand why I can't leave well enough alone." Steven was too confused to even attempt to answer this, he didn't want to say the wrong thing and accidently offend Peridot. "Wait here." He said simply and he ran out of the room, the door slid open when he got in range of the motion sensor. Peridot could have reactivated the security system but she didn't see a point he would just wait outside the door until she cracked and let him in again or she had to come out. Peridot glanced at the communicator that rested on the desk, she got off of the bed and crossed the room and picked it up. This was the only remnant of Homeworld technology she still possessed other than her one useless limb enhancer which Steven had returned to her as a peace offering.

She entered a code, every fiber of her small being hoped that the transmission went through. Heavy static echoed through the room, then "Hello?" Peridot exhaled in relief. "Chrysi." The voice replied almost immediately. "Peridot?! What happened to you? Where are you? I mean- I know where you are but no one's heard from you in weeks and no one's heard from Jasper or Lapis either. No one else really cares but Yellow Diamond was really irate for a while, she got your transmissions but she assumed that you'd been captured so she just decided to scever all contact with you for security reasons. I didn't want to assume the worse but then your contact attempts just...stopped and I got really worried." "Chrysi. listen to me, the connection is bad and frankly I'm surprised the communicator itself hasn't died yet, I would project a hologram so you could see me but that will drain the power source even faster, you can't tell Yellow Diamond that I'm still alive I don't care what story you might have to make up, just don't tell her the truth. I just had to tell you that I was okay...and Chrysi..they're finally gone I have no use for those things anymore…" Peridot glanced at her one remaining limb enhancer. "I'm myself again and I'm sorry that you're not here to see it for yourself...Chrysi I'm sorry for everything that happened but I won't be able to come back maybe I won't be gone forever but I won't be able to come back for awhile. It all depends on how things turn out here. I'm sorry, I can't say that enough." A long silence filled with the occasional burst of static. "I forgive you." The voice sounded distant and the communicator went dead.

Steven ran back into the room holding a strange object in his hands, there was a question on his face. "Who were you just talking to?" he asked, glancing at the now-dead Gem communicator.

Peridot thought about telling him but then he would end up scheming to find a way to get Chrysolite to Earth and that had the possibility of ending very badly. "Don't worry about it Steven," Steven still had concern on his face but he shrugged his shoulders anyway. "Oh, okay if you don't want to talk about it yet it's cool." She smiled at him. "Thank you." She looked down at the object he held in his hands, he seemed to have forgotten about it. "What is that?" She asked eyeing the rectangular object with suspicion. She hadn't seen anything like it before and if Steven had been excited about it then it must be something strange indeed.

Steven looked at the object and grinned. "It's chocolate," He announced proudly. Peridot just blinked. "Clarify." She insisted. "It's a human food, I eat it sometimes when I'm sad." He took the chocolate bar and split it in half down the middle. He handed half to Peridot, who took it and examined it. Steven laughed. "You're supposed to eat it." Peridot made a face of disgust and set the piece of chocolate down, losing interest. "Aw, come on. it's good I know Gems don't really have to eat but at least try it. its not as good as Cookie Cats' but they don't make those anymore and I ate the last ones." Steven shuddered at the memory of how badly his stomach had hurt afterward. Peridot raised an eyebrow in confusion. _Cats were edible?_ she'd have to update her data on the animal.

She looked at the chocolate and started breaking it into even smaller pieces. Steven watched her expectantly. She lifted an almost non-existent sliver of the substance to her lips. "Can you not stare at me?" She asked Steven, irritated as to why he was so interested in her actions. Steven glanced down at his half of the chocolate bar and popped most of it into his mouth eagerly. His cheeks bulged and Peridot began to laugh hysterically. "What?" Steven asked, trying to talk around all the chocolate in his mouth.

"You look, funny." Peridot struggled to breathe. "Stop you're going to make me choke." Steven protested as he tried to swallow. After some difficulty he managed and then he started to laugh as well. "Maybe it wasn't the best idea to try eating it all at once." He said. Peridot had since stopped laughing and had eaten the small piece of chocolate which she'd taken off of her half, she handed the rest of her piece to Steven.

Steven looked at the chocolate. "You don't want it?" He asked. Peridot shook her head. "You obviously like it more than I do." Steven took the chocolate and looked at Peridot with one of his rare 'serious Steven' expressions. "Do you feel better?" He asked. Peridot looked around her room, at her last limb enhancer, at the now-dead communicator on her desk and then at the chocolate bar that Steven held in his hands, she looked the human boy in the eye and nodded. "Yes, I feel better." She said earnestly.


	6. Chapter 6

**Here's where stuff takes a turn.**

Things went pretty smoothly for Peridot for the next couple of days, the guilt over her argument with Chrysolite had lessened somewhat after she'd made her hurried apology via Communicator, but the whole thing had felt rushed and thus it still felt like the apology had lacked in sincerity even though Peridot had meant it entirely.

Steven was bragging to Connie about his newly improved phone. "No way!" Connie snatched the phone out of Steven's hand. Peridot was watching the two humans from her vantage point on the couch. Steven and Connie were sitting cross-legged on the living room floor. The other Crystal Gems had gone on a mission that had been of utmost importance and Garnet had insisted that Steven not come, the boy had protested and Pearl had suggested that Steven call Connie and have her come over so that Steven wouldn't get too bored with just Peridot there, Peridot had been offended at first but then when she analyzed the situation from a logical standpoint instead of letting her emotions interfere she admitted that this was better.

If Steven had Connie to entertain him he would be less likely to ask Peridot questions that she'd rather not explain just yet, she was still trying to get used to working with her enemies. Amethyst still liked calling her a nerd and she'd gotten to the point where she just ignored the term, Garnet still made her feel uncomfortable, fusion was frowned upon on Homeworld for anything other than war tactics, and if a Pearl ever tried to do half of the things that Pearl did on Earth then things would definitely start flipping upside down..Peridot shook her head. _You don't need to think like that anymore._ Easier said than done. You couldn't just take an organism out of its natural environment and expect it to instantly adjust to another place. Things have to adapt and adaptation took time. _You're adapting._ She reassured herself, _just be patient, give yourself time._

Peridot tuned back into Steven's conversation. "Have I mentioned that your life is awesome?" Connie asked Steven for possibly the twentieth time that Peridot was aware of...not that she was counting… Okay was, she couldn't help herself data collection was her thing. Connie turned to Peridot and directed her next question at the Gem. "Can you make me a holographic phone too?" She asked her tone hopefully. Peridot shook her head regretfully. "Nope, sorry I don't have anymore holographic projectors." "Oh." Connie said, trying to hide her disappointment with another question. "Do you have any other cool tech stuff? Steven told me that you used to have detachable fingers, I bet that was cool." Peridot shrugged, she didn't really consider her detachable fingers 'cool' she'd had them for so long that they'd turned into her normal fingers, they'd just been part of her… A part that had hidden the real her; the small, insecure, vulnerable her inside a metal camouflage. _You're dwelling again._ She scolded herself.

She was pushed out of her thoughts and spared the awkward experience of having to answer Connie's question when the warp pad gave of a burst of light and a strange chime noise that announced the Crystal Gems return. Steven jumped up in excitement, Peridot who wasn't facing the warp pad thought nothing of Steven's reaction, Connie looked just as excited about the Gems..nothing out of the ordinary.. Until ordinary was shattered and Peridot's adaptation process froze and reset completely. It was strange how one sentence could change a theory, how one unseen variable could completely alter the outcome of an experiment, how one animal could thrive in new environments while others failed to adapt quickly enough. Steven's excited words caused many emotions to occur inside of Peridot.

"Awesome, you guys found another Gem!" Steven yelled, stars clearly visible in his wide eyes. Peridot's head snapped in the direction of the warp pad. Four Gems stood in the fading light, three of them looked grim and very concerned, the other looked small compared to Garnet and Pearl whom held her by her arms between them, the other Gem was small, yet slender, her viridescent skin glittering in the fading light, her olive colored hair spilling to her shoulders in loose wavy curls, her jade-green eyes wide with confused-panic. Peridot blinked. The wide-eyed Gems looked at each other from across the room. "Chrysolite?" Peridot asked.

 **Cliffhanger! Ahhahaha! :p**


	7. Chapter 7

**Enjoy the long chapter. :)**

Chrysolite locked eyes with Peridot, the panic in her eyes turned into shock. Peridot wanted to run to her friend, but she also wanted to run away. _If Chrysi was here, who else was?_ Chrysi smiled and struggled against Pearl and Garnet's combined grip. "Peridot!" Peridot didn't move.

Her voice floated across the room cold and full of panic. "You said you wouldn't tell anyone, who else is here?" Chrysi blinked. "What? No one I swear, I did this by myself. Peridot I came to take you back, don't you want to go home?" Chrysolite looked at Peridot's face, trying desperately to read her expression. Garnet and Pearl tightened their grips at the mention of Homeworld. Peridot couldn't be allowed to leave, she had information about the Crystal Gems that couldn't fall into Yellow Diamond's hands.

Chrysolite squeaked in pain, Steven reacted first. "Guys, stop it, she's scared and you're hurting her!" Peridot seemed to come out of her strange trance and she pushed herself slowly off of the couch, her arms and legs moved slowly as her brain raced a million miles a hour still trying to process this unseen event. _Chrysolite was here?! Why would she have come? They'd been friends once before but had that changed was she lying about not telling anyone else where I am? What if she's turned into my enemy?_

Peridot braced herself against the couch now that she was standing she felt like she had to lean on something or she would fall over and shatter on the floor under the weight of what was before her. "Don't you want to come home Peridot?" Chrysi asked again.

Peridot stared at Chrysi just stared and blinked because her tongue couldn't form words. _No, she did not want to go 'home' and Chrysi was being cruel if she thought that Peridot wanted to go back. 'Come back and face the consequences of your actions, come back so we can make you regret that you left in the first place' not going to happen._ Peridot's legs collapsed underneath her and she fell to the floor on her knees. "Peridot!" Chrysi yelled, the green Gem finally released herself from Pearl and Garnet's grip and ran to kneel besides Peridot.

"Peridot, what's wrong? Talk to me, tell me please." _Tell me those, words. She'd missed those words so much.. They'd told each other everything. So why wouldn't her tongue work? Why couldn't she just tell Chrysolite to leave her here on Earth to figure out how Earth worked and start a new life for herself. 'Because you don't want Chrysolite to leave.' But I don't want to be selfish either. Why are feelings so complicated?_

Peridot finally made eye contact with Chrysi for the first time in what felt like an eternity. The Gem took a deep breath and tried to ignore her inner turmoil of confused emotions.

"We have a lot to catch up on." Peridot said as she forced herself to stand up. She walked towards the Temple door with Chrysi following, the censor appeared and the two reunited Gems disappeared. Leaving the five other beings in the living room to have their own discussion on the events that had just unfolded.

Chrysolite took in the room with all the wide-eyed curiosity of anyone who'd arrived on a new planet. Because she obviously had. Oh questions! So many questions, the two of them had a million things to ask each other and the questions hung in the air and Peridot was the first to ask one. She seemed to have regained her logical thought process. "How are you here?" Chrysi tore her eyes away from one of Peridot's notebooks and sat down in the desk chair.. They were going to be here a while…..

Pearl cast an anxious glance at the Temple door and then looked at Garnet accusingly. "Why did you let them go in there… What if they try to steal something… What if that other Gem convinces Peridot to go back to Homeworld?!" Garnet replied with her usual calmness. "There is only one entrance in and out of the Temple, they'll have to come out the way they came in, and if they show signs of violence they'll have to get past us to get to the warp pad and the door." Garnet gestured to Amethyst who stood in front of the door with her whip clutched in her hand. "I still don't like it." Pearl muttered.

"Would you guys calm down? We've got this, besides your tone might start to freak Steven out." Amethyst hissed from across the room. Steven reacted to Amethyst's comment by crossing the room and looking at Garnet with a patient expression. "You guys keep saying that this Gem is here to turn Peridot bad again, but from what I saw…maybe you should have a little more faith that Peridot can talk to this Gem and make her good. If she was ever really 'bad' in the first place." The five of them all watched the door and waited..

"You did what!?"

"I stole an escape pod from a ship I would have taken an entire ship but they would have noticed that had gone missing a lot faster than they would notice an escape pod. It seemed like the best option." Peridot had to give Chrysi credit where credit was due but then panic set in. "Chrysi… The escape pods have tracking devices." Chrysi knew this of course but the implications of Peridot's words took another moment to sink in. "Oh."

Peridot was in motion the next second. She motioned for Chrysi to move out of the chair. Her motions weren't panicked, they were simply quick and purposeful; just like the many times before when she'd had to finish a task quickly and still get good results, her brain forced panic away so that she wouldn't have anything interfering with her logical reasoning.

The computer screen blinked to life and after entering a code the screen pulled up an image of the living room. "Simple camera system." Peridot explained. "Just like security systems back home only a lot less complicated. I want you to stay here and watch if any of them move, I want you to tell me. We need to get to the warp pad without them knowing." Chrysi nodded. "What are you going to do?" Peridot snatched the dead Gem Communicator off of the desk and hopped out of the desk chair so that Chrysi could take her place and watch the computer screen. "I'm going to reboot this thing's system and see if I can find the pod's signal and track it. If I don't find anything that means that the tracking device wasn't active when you launched the pod and that no one back on Homeworld has noticed the pod is missing yet but if I find something then we'll have to get to the pod and destroy the tracking device and hope we got to it in time and that no one else is following the signal to Earth."

The hours ticked away, the Crystal Gems refused to move. Peridot was too busy rearranging the Communicator's wires and trying to turn the thing on to notice anything else that might have been going on, she occasionally glanced at Chrysolite who was more or less doing her job, even Peridot couldn't stare at a screen that wasn't doing anything without getting slightly bored. The two of them sat in silence for a while longer. Chrysi spoke after a while.

She was fiddling with a pen, as she spoke. "You never answered my question… About wanting to go back to Homeworld." Peridot set the Communicator down. "No, I don't want to come back… At least not yet… I have stuff that I need to fix here… I don't want to go back while Yellow Diamond still has power..I don't care if that sounds like me being a coward."

Chrysi said nothing for a moment, she'd always been the better of the two when it came to listening. "So nothing could have made you go back? Not even knowing that I was there worrying about you." Peridot shook her head, trying to search for words. "I thought that you were still mad and I thought that if you wouldn't care where I was or what had happened. I thought I'd crossed some line and you'd hate me if I came back." Peridot admitted.

Chrysolite stopped fiddling with the pen and set it down with more force than was necessary. She swiveled away from the computer screen and looked at Peridot.

"I _was_ mad, I thought that we were making up and then I woke up in my room alone, you weren't there.. And you never came back. I thought that it was my fault that you'd left. _I_ thought that _you_ didn't want to see _me_ anymore I was mad at _myself._ I'm sorry, I should have listened to you more." Peridot looked at Chrysolite, shocked. "You're. Apologying to _me_?"

"Yes I am. You already apologized to me, it's my turn. Peridot, you just admitted to me that you weren't going to come back home because you were afraid that the Authority was going to hurt you. You thought that I was still going to be mad at you." Peridot nodded slowly although there didn't seem to be a need to do so.

"That tells me that I messed up, Peridot. We're friends I would have gotten over it and if anyone tried to hurt you I wouldn't let them. Even if I was still mad at you."

Peridot smiled. "You're better at this apology thing then I am."

Chrysolite smiled. "Thanks."

Peridot went back to rearranging wires in the Communicator. The thing still wouldn't turn on. So the power source really was dead. _I don't have anymore Homeworld devices._ She complained inside her head. She glanced at her last limb enhancer where it rested on its self.

She jumped to her feet and walked purposefully over to the shelf.

The little green button that was meant to detach the enhancer from the rest of the actual limb had worked once before. She just hoped that it still did.

The button hummed when she pressed it. She pried the button off of the limb and exposed the wires on the inside. _Jackpot!_ A power chip was wrapped protectively in a mass of wires. She carefully freed the power chip and went back to the Communicator. "I thought you said you got rid of those things." Chrysi said looking away from the computer screen to stare at the limb enhancer. "Let's be glad I didn't" Peridot defended herself.

She placed the new power chip in the Communicator and pressed the power button. The thing buzzed and then hummed smoothly. The thing lit up. _Yes!_ Peridot thought. She activated the tracking feature. A little yellow dot appeared on the screen. _No!_ Peridot hissed through her teeth. She pressed her finger to the yellow dot and a hologram projected out of the device, displaying the coordinates of the escape pod. "We have a location." Peridot told Chrysi grimly.


	8. Chapter 8

**Well we have more cute friendship moments and more backstory regarding Peridot and Chrysolite's relationship. Yay for character development! :) and this is currently my most viewed story thanks for being so supportive!**

"Well, their not coming out of there so I'm not going to stand here anymore." Amethyst announced as she pushed herself away from the doorframe which she'd been leaning on.

"And just where do you think you're going?" Pearl demanded. "Anywhere that isn't here because here is boring at the moment." Amethyst replied, she walked towards the Temple door and disappeared into her own room. "Maybe we need to try a different approach." Pearl muttered.

Garnet nodded. "Steven you're on guard duty. Steven's face lit up and he set his face into a determined expression. "Are you sure that's the best idea?" Pearl asked uncertainty. " It's not that I don't trust Steven but he's friends with Peridot and she might use it to her advantage."

Garnet shrugged. "Maybe, but if he's the only one out here then Peridot's more likely to actually come _out_ of the Temple. "That's true." Pearl admitted. "Okay, Steven please take this seriously." Pearl begged. Steven nodded.

"They've all left now," Chrysi said taking her eyes off of the computer screen. "Expect for that small one with the black hair." "His name's Steven." Peridot commented before she sighed. "I was hoping that they'd all just give up but I don't want to risk waiting anymore. It's now or never." She and Chrysolite marched toward the door.

"Steven?" Steven heard his name before the two green Gems emerged from out of the Temple. Connie; whom had pretty much been forgotten in all of the excitement looked at Peridot with her eyes narrowed. "Steven...remember what the Gems said about her trying to to trick you." Connie warned.

Steven looked at Connie and then at the two uncertain Gems who stood on the other side of the room. "You guys can come over here. " Steven said, folding his hands and rested them in his lap as a sign that he didn't wish to hurt them.

Peridot exhaled and inched forward with Chrysolite following directly behind her, it was strange to have Chrysi behind her, back on Homeworld on the occasions when they had been younger and fear was still considered acceptable behavior, Peridot had been the one who'd shelter herself behind Chrysolite seeing as Chrysi was the older and taller Gem of the two.

This sudden reverse unnerved Peridot ever so slightly but she couldn't necessarily blame Chrysi either.

She didn't know what Earth was like yet she'd most likely only been on the planet for a few hours at most and Homeworld wasn't here to criticize her actions. If she felt scared then Peridot wasn't going to be the one to judge her.

"Steven. I know that you'll get in trouble if the Gems find out but you need to let us use the warp pad." Peridot insisted.

Uncertainty crossed the young human's face. "Yeah. The Gems would be _really_ mad." Steven said. "So they don't have to find out." Peridot continued. "It will be our little secret." Steven got stars in his eyes again. "Secret team." He whispered almost to himself. Peridot looked confused. "What?" Peridot glanced over her shoulder at Chrysolite who shrugged. "Don't look at me, I just got here I'm not familiar with Earth terminology." Peridot glanced at Steven again. "Yeah sure secret team." She said. Steven stood up and followed them to the warp pad, an excited grin on his face. "If you guys are going on a mission can I come..can I can I...please?!" Steven begged. Chrysolite and Peridot exchanged a nervous look as they stood side by side on the warp pad. "No." They replied in unison as the warp pad activated and they disappeared.

Steven turned away from the warp pad with a disappointed pout on his face. "Aw man, they get to have all the fun." Connie stood up from her place on the floor and marched toward the Temple door. "Where are you going?" Steven asked falling into step with her. "I'm going to tell the Gems." Connie replied. "What? You can't, we promised them we wouldn't!" Steven pleaded. " _You_ promised _I_ didn't, besides they're going to find out eventually one way or another." Connie reasoned.

"Find out what?" Pearl asked, choosing that exact moment to come out of the Temple. Steven bit his lip, determined to keep his promise to Peridot. Connie looked from Steven to Pearl.

It was Garnet who saved either of the children from confessing.

"Peridot and Chrysolite have left." She said simply. Pearl looked exasperated. "You knew this was going to happen didn't you? You set this whole thing up, you made Steven guard so those two _could_ leave. Garnet I wish you would tell me these things!" Pearl complained as the two of them walked towards the warp pad. "Where's the fun in that?" Garnet asked sounding slightly amused. "Yeah Pearl," said Amethyst, appearing out of the Temple. "Quit being such a buzzkill." "I'm not a buzzkill." Pearl complained. Steven and Connie who had not been told to stay behind figured that they would invite themselves along so the two kids went to stand on the warp pad with the three Gems, none of whom protested to their presence and the group simply warped away.

Peridot yanked the tracking chip out of its nest of wires, smiling a little manically as she did so. "Victory is mine!" She said triumphantly. Chrysolite folded her arms and rolled her eyes while an amused smile tugged at the corners of her lips. "Excuse me, but I seem to recall _helping_ you achieve your victory, or have I just been vividly imagining the fact that I stared at a computer screen for almost two hours?" Peridot snorted with laughter and rolled her eyes. "You have no imagination and even if you _did_ that's _exactly_ the kind of thing you would imagine anyway."

"Are you saying I'm boring?" Chrysi asked, pretending to be offended.

"I'm saying that _we_ are boring."

"And that's supposed to make me feel better?"

"It's not an insult if I call myself the same thing. It just means that I think we have a lot in common."

"I see, but I already knew that we had a lot in common, you don't have to tell me that." Chrysi said. Peridot replied with a small smile. "Okay. So it's _our_ victory," she declared holding up the tracking chip. "My dear sidekick." Chrysi raised an eyebrow. "Oh, I'm a sidekick now? Since when?" "Since we met."

"I accept. So long as you're _my_ sidekick."

"Duh, you don't even have to ask that question."

Chrysolite gasped with mock surprise. "Did you just say that I didn't have to ask you a question? _Peridot_ doesn't want to be asked a question? It's like I don't even know you anymore!"

"Haha you're hilarious." Peridot laughed mockingly. Chrysi didn't drop the act.

Peridot hopped out of the escape pod and let out a noise of protest when Chrysolite suddenly grabbed her head between her hands and stared at her. "Who are you and what have you done with my friend? Peridot doesn't have a sense of humor." Chrysi teased. Peridot moaned and slapped her friend's hands away. "Stop it, we came here for a reason."

Chrysolite looked relieved. "Oh good, you're back." Peridot stuck her tongue out at Chrysolite in a show of childish annoyance. "Shut up." Peridot demanded although her tone wasn't in the least bit threatening.

"Seriously though, let's get out of here before those Crystal Gems find out we're missing and Pearl freaks out, although it's normally equal parts hilarious and terrifying I have a feeling where I'm concerned it would be only about twenty percent funny… If I'm lucky."

"Who put her in charge anyway?" Chrysi asked.

Peridot shrugged. "I wouldn't say she's in charge, her and the fusion- Garnet I mean- they sort of split the responsibility Amethyst has her rare moments too that's how stuff works here." Peridot realized that Chrysi seemed lost in her own thoughts. "Um… Earth to Chrysi?" Chrysolite blinked. "Garnet's a fusion?"

"Yeah. She hardly ever un-fuses I've only seen it once-when I first came to Earth Jasper got into a fight with her and forced her to un-fuse."

Chrysi seemed to consider this information for a minute before replying seemingly out of nowhere. "Do you remember Chrysoprase?" Peridot's footsteps halted abruptly as the name turned a lock in her mind, opening the door to one of her earliest memories.

 _The sound of child-like laughter echoed off of the walls of the Kindergarten. It was a relatively small Kindergarten and was one of the nearest to Homeworld._

" _I'm going to catch you!" Came the high-pitched laughter. "Are not." the younger Peridot yelled over her shoulder as she crouched down behind a rock and tried to quiet her rushed breathing. The green Gem pressed her small back against the rock's cold surface._

 _Silence. The dirt muffled Chrysolite's footsteps as she approached. "Boo!" She giggled as she crawled over the top of the rock and landed next to Peridot. Peridot's scream turned into a fit of giggling. And Peridot launched her counterattack by tackling Chrysi. The small Gem landed on her friend's chest and pinned her arms to the ground. "I win." Peridot declared with a smug grin._

 _In response the Gem in the center of Chrysolite's throat started to glow. Peridot tilted her head in confusion._

 _The next thing Peridot knew she was on the ground on her back. 'How am I on the ground? Chysi is supposed to be on the ground'_

' _I am on the ground.' Chysi's voice echoed in Peridot's head. Peridot pushed herself off the ground and looked around, trying to find Chysi. 'On the ground where?'_

' _Oh I'm not on the ground anymore, I just got up.'_

 _Peridot looked around. 'Where are you?'_

' _I'm right here, I'm with you.'_

 _The realization dawned on them. 'We just fused!' Their voices came at the same time and melded together and came out out of their mouth as one voice. It was strange, Peridot would later think of the experience as looking at herself in a mirror and watching herself move her limbs, her actions mirrored perfectly by her reflection, her looking at her reflection and knowing that the reflection was the same as her and yet different. Chysi was her reflection and she somehow knew that she was Chysi's. They smiled with the pure joy and excitement of children._

 _The same thought crossed their minds. And there was a flash of light. A staff was in their hand, a stick that had a circular saw blade on top._

 _Both fusion and weapon were small compared to other fusions, seeing as both of them were young. The fusion was only five feet in height._

 _They moved their foot to take a cautious step forward, when their bond didn't slip they became bolder and gripped their weapon staff tighter._

 _There was a scream and they both looked up to one of the caretakers staring at them open-mouthed, eyes burning with a disapproving glare. "Who are you?" She demanded._

 _They tilted their head in mild confusion. "We're Chrysoprase." They said. The truth of their name was solid as if Chrysoprase had always been their name it was a fact that couldn't be denied and the knowledge that the caretaker didn't know shocked them._

 _The caretaker scowled disapprovingly. "No I mean who are you made of." The caretaker snapped. The voice broke into its two different counterparts. "Peridot and Chrysolite."_

" _Un-fuse this instant, such behavior is beneath the both of you!" The caretaker demanded louder than before, nearly screaming. Chrysoprase stared at her hands which were smooth and shiny, pale blue-green. She glanced at her saw bladed spear and the two children inside her set their mouths and replied in unison and their voices melded together again when they spoke through Chrysoprase. "No. We don't wanna, this is fun, we're bigger and we have a weapon now, we can be a Warrior Gem!" They replied with childish spite._

" _Don't be ridiculous," the caretaker replied. "Of course you can't be a Warrior Gem!"_

 _A crack appeared in the mirror as the words cracked at their self-esteem. "Why not?" Chrysoprase replied with Peridot and Chrysolite's combined voice, the calm diplomatic tone echoed with sorrow. "Because it's not your purpose." "Why can't we be what we want to?"_ " _Because this behavior is unacceptable! Now un-fuse."_

" _No."_

" _You are useless to your society like this! Do you want to be useless? " 'useless?' Peridot and Chrysi thought in unison. The mirror cracked and shattered. There was a flash of light as their staff disappeared and they split apart, Chysi landed on the ground and scrambled to her feet, clutching Peridot protectively to her chest as Peridot blinked in hurt shock at their caretaker._

" _Are we useless now?!" Chysi snapped at the caretaker in bitter anger. The childish tone gone from her voice as if she'd grown up in a split second._

 _The caretaker rolled her eyes and snarled in annoyance. "Don't use that tone with me young lady! You will come with me this instant so we can discuss your awful behavior!" the caretaker grabbed Chysi's arm and dragged her forward._

 _Peridot wrapped her arms more tightly around Chysi's waist. "No!" Peridot protested, glaring at the caretaker with defiant and frightened eyes._

 _Chysi shook the caretaker's hand away with a sharp jerk. "Get away from us!" Chysi snapped in rage._

 _They ran away, shape-shifting into lizards and darting into the smallest Gem hole they could find, the caretaker stormed off in a rage. "This is going on your records!" She yelled at them as she disappeared._

 _They left the hole and shifted back to their normal forms. Huddling with their backs against the rock, their eyes staring alert into the mist in the direction that the caretaker had gone. "We're in trouble aren't we?" Peridot whispered._

" _Yeah." Chysi said softly._

" _I don't like being in trouble." Peridot said her voice was almost inaudible._

" _Me neither." Chysi agreed._

" _Did she really mean what she said about us being useless?" Peridot asked in her small whisper. "I'm not sure." Chrysi replied, sounding hopeless._

" _I don't want to be useless." Peridot felt tears forming in her eyes. Chysi pulled her friend closer. And spoke in a determined voice. "Then we're just going to have to prove to them that we don't deserve to be called useless." Peridot nodded with a weak smile._

Peridot's throat felt tight but she nodded slowly and forced the next words past the lump in her throat. "Of course I remember." She said her voice trembling slightly with emotion.


	9. Chapter 9

**Sorry for the kind of late update I've been kind of busy but I watched the sneak peek for the next episode. No more hiatus! Yay! If anyone's interested I listened to Intro:the xx while writing this chapter. Enjoy.**

"What do you think you're doing?" Peridot and Chrysolite were rudely pushed out of memory-lane when they heard Pearl's voice. "What is that?" Pearl asked, referring to the tracking device that Peridot was holding. "One question at a time, please." Chrysolite said in a sort of irritated snappish tone which wasn't like her at all but she was in a weird mood and Pearl's tone reminded her of the caretaker's tone from all those years ago.

"It's a tracking device." Peridot replied. Pearl shot them a murderous glare, Garnet folded her arms, Amethyst gritted her teeth and Steven and Connie looked a mixture of afraid and disappointed.

Peridot held her hands out. "As for what we're doing with it," She pressed her fingers to the thin green-tinted glass and watched as cracks begin to spider-web over the fragile surface.

A few sparks emitted from the tracking chip as if it were protesting its destruction. There was a brittle snapping sound and the little thing shattered into hundreds of pieces, Peridot let the shards slip between her fingers like raindrops and nudged them with her foot until they were buried in the dirt and stuck in between the cracks of the rocks. "We were destroying it, but I can see that you thought we meant to use it against you, perhaps lead a Homeworld fleet of ships directly to your base?" Pearl looked uncomfortable. Peridot held out her hands, showing them her palms and her fingers which were slightly black where the sparks had touched her skin. The gesture made her feel oddly vulnerable, her voice when she spoke again was defeated and sad. "Thanks for the vote of confidence." _Why can't they trust me? I thought I was different now._

"I didn't tell them, they figured it out on their own." Steven sounded disappointed in himself for not being able to keep the secret. Peridot gave him a reassuring smile "It's okay Steven, you did your best I figured they'd find out eventually."

"Well we need to go back to the base then." Pearl said trying to get rid of the uncomfortableness of the situation and only making it worse. Chrysolite understood just how uncomfortable it would make Peridot to get onto the already crowded warp pad and saved Peridot and herself from the awkward situation "We'll walk back." Pearl opened her mouth to protest but Garnet placed a firm hand on Pearl's shoulder. "Don't." Garnet said firmly. Pearl snapped her mouth shut and the group wrapped away.

The silence that followed the Crystal Gems disappearance was heavy with uncertainty. Neither Peridot nor Chrysolite honestly wanted to go back to the house and get a lengthy lecture from any of the Crystal Gems but they honestly didn't want to stay where they were; with the shattered remains of the tracking device, the escape pod looming mere feet away and the memories of Chrysoprase echoing in both their minds...this place felt eerie. Like a graveyard- a place you went when you wanted to remember the past.- Peridot looked over her shoulder at the escape pod. She'd much rather forget her past. "Are you okay?" Chysi's voice snapped Peridot out of her thoughts. "Yeah, I'm fine." Peridot responded. " Let me rephrase: What's wrong? Because I know you better than that and I _know_ you're not okay."

"They still don't really trust me. I guess I just don't understand what they want from me." "You could talk to them." Chysi said gently. "Actions speak louder than words, I thought it'd be better to show them that I want to help them , I _could_ talk to them, but I'm not good with words." "You're talking to me right now." Chysi pointed out. "Yeah, but I know you! That's different." "If you say so." Before the silence could become awkward Peridot changed the subject. "Are we really going to walk back, because I have no idea what direction to go." Chysi laughed. "No we're not walking I just said that so we had an excuse to not go with them." Chysi marched over to the warp pad. "Ready to go back?" "No but I don't want to stay here."

Chysi leaned back in Peridot's desk chair. Peridot laying on her bed and staring at the ceiling, the two of them were the only ones in the entire house. Steven and the other Crystal Gems had gone on a small mission and Connie had gone home.

"I'm not the only one who's bored, right?" Peridot said to the ceiling. "It's just you I'm trying to figure out which of these notebooks I should read first," she held a spiral bound notebook and dropped it unceremoniously back onto the desk. "Seriously, how many of these do you have? You've only been here a few months."

"Well I ran out of room on the recorder that Steven gave me," Peridot gestured at the recorder which was resting on a corner of the desk, nearly forgotten. "So I started writing stuff down instead, bare in mind that most of that information comes from Steven so I don't know if all of it can be called _accurate_."

Chrysolite picked up the recorder and examined it, brushing away a thin layer of dust that had settled on its surface.

"I'll take what I can get." Chysi replied

Peridot was honestly at a loss for words, who would have thought the she would have known more about Earth then someone else.

Peridot shape-shifted into a green lizard and crawled off the bed, she ran across the floor and scrambled up the desk chair, she sat on one of the armrests. Chysi placed her elbow on the armrest and left her fingers resting on the desk.

Peridot used Chysi's arm like a bridge to cross the small gap between the desk and the chair.

"Any particular reason you're," Chysi simply gestured at Peridot, at a loss for words. "Like that?"

"I'm out of practice." Peridot replied, still in lizard form. Peridot proceed to tell Chysi how the recorder worked.

Soft static filled the room as the recorder began to replay the echo of Peridot's voice. Chysi set the recorder down on the desk and simply listened carefully.

Peridot didn't feel the need to hear herself talk at the moment so she shape-shifted into a green parakeet and flew to land on top of one of the black lights, she overshot her landing a little on the first try and the light swung violently with her small and unbalanced weight, her feet were knocked out from under her and she gave a panicked chirp as she fell off the light and landed on the bed with a soft thump.

She stood up and made a noise of frustration, ruffling her feathers she made another attempt and had a successful landing this time.

She walked from one of the light to the other, examining the thin wires that attached the light to the ceiling for any damage. There was a click from below and it took Peridot a moment to realize that Chysi had paused the recorder. "What's pizza?" Peridot scanned her brain for any memory of the word. She recalled that Connie and Steven had been at the house one day for what Steven had called 'Connie's birthday party' they had ordered pizza and watched a movie. Peridot hadn't really participated in the event she'd just told Steven that she wanted to observe, so she had sat on top of the counter and watched.

"It's a human food that smells like grease." Peridot said in response to Chysi's question. "Have you tasted it?" Chysi asked. "Nope, the whole 'eating' concept doesn't appeal to me, if you want to know what it tastes like then ask Amethyst, I'm sure she'd be happy to explain."

Peridot turned her attention to the screws that attached the wires to the light itself, she pecked at them trying to see if any of them were loose.

She found a loose one and grasped it in one of her small clawed feet, she twisted it until it was tight enough. Satisfied she left her perch on the light and flustered down to the bed.

There was a flash of light and Peridot was back to normal in the same position she'd started in, staring at the ceiling.

She was considering organizing pens. _Am I seriously that bored?_ When Amethyst's loud voice echoed from the other side of the door. "You nerds might want to come and see this!" Chysi and Peridot exchanged a curious glance and stood up to go and see what could possibly be of enough importance that the Crystal Gems would want them to know about it.

It was a news broadcast. "The government would like to make everyone aware that they might have found evidence of an impending alien invasion, Said evidence comes in the form of an anonymous blog discovered by the Paranormal Investigation branch of the CIA. Agents have been dispatched to investigate the possibility of the entire thing being a hoax, we'll announce more information as it becomes available." The broadcast cut to black and silence filled the room as the Crystal Gems, Peridot, Chrysolite and Steven stared at the TV screen in disbelief.


	10. Chapter 10

**Sorry for the almost month between updates I've been busy with stuff and most of my energy has been focused on planning an art project. So anyways here you go.**

Amethyst whirled on Peridot and Chrysolite. Eyes blazing in fear and anger.

"You nerds told the GOVERNMENT about us?!" "No why would I do that?!" Peridot snapped back anxiety thick in own her voice. She clenched her fists, fingertips biting into her palms. _Calm down. Focus._ Peridot cast her mind out for a solution, although she'd never been a warrior back on Homeworld she felt she had a pretty good understanding of various battle strategies. The technical aspects of war. How to arrange battle formations, how sides sent messages back and forth between to negotiate terms that would result in the least bloodshed. Peridot gulped a little at the thought of dying.

 _No. Shut up. Emotions rule out logical thinking. Think about the odds._ Very small. This was not a gem army. Not even close. Hiding in the Temple was the best option seeing as it could only be opened by a Gem and was protected by Gem magic, but they didn't know what kind of technology the government had and if the magic would hold up against a modern Earth attack.

Peridot took a deep breath to calm herself again. "I have a plan."

* * *

The Temple door glowed green and everyone entered Peridot's room. "You're plan is to hide?" Amethyst growled in annoyance. "Not everything can be solved with violence Amethyst." Peridot reasoned. "That sounds like something a nerd would say." Amethyst muttered. Chysi approached Peridot, hovering over her friend's shoulder. "What's a nerd?" She asked, having heard the unfamiliar Earth term. Peridot cleared her throat, not taking her eyes off of Amethyst. "Nerd: A socially inept person who dedicates themselves to intellectual or academic pursuits." Amethyst blinked, taken aback. Peridot took only a moment to enjoy the look on the other Gem's face. She turned slightly on her heel. "I read a dictionary." She intoned "Looks like you'll have to find a better insult." Peridot said with a smirk.

"Enough you too. We have bigger problems." Garnet chided the two before the situation could get out of hand. "What's this plan you were talking about." Pearl insisted while leaning against the wall. "It better be good because we don't have energy to worry about the Cluster situation and the possibility of Homeworld coming back _and_ having to fight a lot of frightened humans. We're supposed to be protecting humanity, not many people knew about us and it kept everyone safer that way but now….What are we supposed to do?" She sounded weary just saying it. But underneath that weariness was a different tone. One of trust. Shaky and uncertain but trust none the less and it was all Peridot needed to hear.

The small green gem took another deep breath and steeled her nerves. ' _Show them you don't deserve to be called useless' Prove to them that they can trust you._ "Don't think of it as hiding. Think of this," Peridot gestured around the room to nothing in particular. "As our base of operations. Depending on where the Government base is located we could have anywhere between a few hours to a few days for them to actually get here." Peridot pointed to the floor to emphasise her point. "We just need to convince them that we're on their side." "That's easier said than done." Pearl pointed out. "I understand that." Peridot assured her.

* * *

 _Three hours earlier_

 **Paranormal research Lab**

 **Location: Nevada Desert**

Agent 27 sipped at his coffee and had to swallow it quickly in order to prevent the sticky substance from exiting his mouth and spilling all over the expensive keyboard. He swallowed the coffee and proceeded to laugh at the video he was watching on the monitor of his computer. "Oh wow this kid is a _riot!"_ He attempted to cover up his sudden outburst but he'd already drawn the attention of his supervisor.

The other man approached number 27's desk. "What are you doing?" 27's supervisor snapped. 27 clutched his coffee cup nervously. "I...um?" His supervisor didn't wait for a coherent answer and leaned forward, his shadow falling ominously over the computer screen. "You're watching Internet videos?" "I….Number 15 watches cat videos!" 27 blurted in an attempt to remove himself of guilt. Number 15, a blonde woman a few desks down craned her neck to glare at 27. The supervisor didn't seem amused in the slightest. "Shut it off." he demanded of 27. "Yes sir. " the agent reached his hand toward the power button on the computer in his haste to carry out the order, nerves making him momentarily forgot that he could simply click the 'X' button on the tab and continue on with the work he was _supposed_ to be doing.

The supervisor lingered over the other man's shoulder to make sure the order was actually carried out. He glanced at the name of the blog which was plastered on the homepage like something between a battle cry and a political campaign slogan. _Keep Beach City Weird!_

The supervisor raised an eyebrow as his gaze moved from the site logo to the status updates and the strange looking pictures. "Wait!" He snapped at 27, the poor man gave a small yelp and jerked his shaking hand away from the power button which he'd been stalling not to push in the hope that his supervisor would simply let him off with a warning. "W-what?" 27 stuttered.

"What's that?" The supervisor pointed to the most recent update, he checked the date… three days ago. 27 scrolled the mouse over the post. It was just a blurry picture of something green. 27 squinted trying to figure out what it could possibly be.

He shrugged in defeat. "No idea. Someone needs to teach this kid how to use a camera." The supervisor didn't verbally react to this comment and instead took the mouse and dragged it across the photo. An arrow appeared. Maybe there would be a better picture?

Clicking on the arrow revealed a video. "Are you planning an invasion?" A very loud voice asked, the phone speaker buzzed and crackled in protest to the boy's level of volume. The background wasn't any quieter. The video had no doubt been shot in a public place. Another voice answered, it had a bizarre pitch and tone to it that was a little bit annoying but not as annoying as the other kid's loud voice and horrible camera work. "Why would I tell you such things?" The less annoying voice said in reply…"Do you have contact with the Mothership? Came yet another question. Mothership? Do you mean Yellow Dia-?" An abrupt pause followed. But there was still speaker static. The voice had stopped now that was at least strange.

27 held up three fingers and audibly counted to three "One… Two… Three." "We could be onto something here." 27 groaned. "Oh please I've watched this kid's stuff before it's totally staged. It's probably just one of those Internet comedy shows." The supervisor glared. 27 coughed, realizing he'd just admitted to slacking off multiple times before this. "Or we could have something." He agreed sheepishly. "I want you to trace that web addresses and get us a location and you better hope this is the real deal otherwise I'm firing you for irresponsible use of your time." The supervisor threatened before walking away.

 **Kinda short but I'd rather post a short chapter now other than make you guys wait longer.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Okay I feel really bad for making you guys wait but I had finals to take and that art project that I mentioned (which I got a good grade on by the way yay for not failing!) I was planning to update last week but my brain was mush because of testing and other story ideas came up and took over and…*rambles on for eternity***

There was a strange man standing outside the window of the fry shop when Ronaldo came to the window. Now living in Beach City Ronaldo had a pretty flexible definition of the word weird.

But he'd never seen a man like this except for in movies. "What can I get you sir?" Ronaldo asked trying to sound professional and feeling slightly embarrassed that he was in his normal floral shirt and brown shorts, while the man was in a black and white tuxedo. _Wasn't it a bit hot out to be wearing that kind of stuff? Oh well at least the man has sunglasses._ "I'm looking for someone," the man answered.

The man pulled a file-folder out of his jacket and handed it to Ronaldo through the window. _It would have been cooler if he'd slid it across the counter_. Ronaldo thought with a bit of disappointment.

The agent had been considering the very same thing but from looking at the sticky half-dried soda and grease stains on the said counter he'd decided it was best not to do that in order to make sure the file and the information it contained wasn't ruined.

Ronaldo opened the file as the agent started to speak. "We're looking for someone who runs a blog called _Keep Beach City Weird._ We traced the web address to this town and the people we've asked about it led us here." Ronaldo almost dropped the file in surprise. _The Government's heard of my blog!?_

"We're looking for the blogger's opinion on this," the agent reached his hand towards the file and Ronaldo handed it over.

The agent pulled a picture out of the file and showed it to Ronaldo. It was a printed out screenshot of the photo from his blog post from about a week ago. Despite it being even more blurry in its larger size Ronaldo felt he would have recognized it anywhere.

"The polymorphic sentient rock." The man's eyebrow appeared above his black sunglasses. "The what?" He asked not even bothering to pretend he knew what the kid was talking about.

"Polymorphic. Sentient. Rock." Ronaldo repeated slowly as if he was speaking to someone who was younger or less intelligent then himself. Though neither of those things were true.

The agent continued with his speech, not really sure what to say about the term that Ronaldo had repeated. "We've seen your blog and we believe that based on the video these… Things might be a threat to humanity. If you know where we can find them I would like you to tell me so that I can gather the rest of my team and investagate further.

Ronaldo grinned widely. _He was going to save the planet!_

"Yes of course Sir I'd be happy to help you."

 **Super short I know but I want to have the next chapter focus on the confrontation between the Crystal Gems and the Government and putting it all in one chapter would feel rushed to me. I should have the next chapter up sometime this weekend. :)**


	12. Chapter 12

**And of course things never go the way I plan. I had plot ideas for other stories hit me really hard so I got distracted trying to flesh those out. I am so sorry for making you wait! Here's the second to last chapter! :) Also I heard that Steven Universe will be returning in June for the beginning of their 3rd season. So pumped guys!**

* * *

The black Government vehicles skidded across the sand of the beach and screeched to a stop.

Agent 27 all but tuck and rolled out of the vehicle. He swung his open open so hard that it almost swung violently closed again. He pushed himself out of his seat and slammed the door so that the vehicle shook with the force.

He inhaled and exhaled as rapidly as possible, getting through a breath and a half before the excited teenage followed his lead and exited the car.

"That was so coool I can't believe you let me ride shotgun!" Ronaldo screamed. 27 covered his ears and lifted his eyes skyward, pleading with the universe to put him out of his misery. "I _didn't_ let you ride shotgun. You climbed over the backseat even when I told you not to and now I have sand all over the leather seats. Cars aren't meant to be jungle gyms."

Ronald turned red from embarrassment. "Sorry man I'm just really excited the United States Government! Knows about _my_ blog!"

"So you have said for the seventh time in the last minute and a half. " 27 responded dryly. "So…." Ronaldo began.

27 sighed and wished that it was the last breath he would ever take. "What model is this car? Did the Government give it to you or did you have to buy it yourself? How much did it cost? Does it come in red?"

"I am half a second away from using my taser on you!" 27 snapped.

Ronaldo made the very wise choice of backing up a few steps.

27 took one more calming breath and stared at the unimpressive beachhouse before him. He took off his sunglasses and squinted, placing his glasses back on his face. "You sure this is the right place kid?"

Ronaldo nodded his head rapidly. "Yep this is it."

Agent 27 huffed. "I was expecting something more...impressive."

Number 15 exited her own car and shut the door with a flourish. She shot 27 a glare and scoffed.. "We work for Paranormal Investigations. Haven't you ever been taught that there's more to things than meets the eye?"She lifted her eyes to the house and sauntered toward the stairs that lead up to the door. "But just so we're clear if we don't find anything I'm going to make sure you never existed. The Government is _very_ good at doing stuff like that," She was halfway up the steps before she called over her shoulder. "Who's ready to make history gentlemen?"

* * *

"We've got company." Chysi warned from her place at the computer, she'd been watching the security camera feeds when the Government agents had stormed into the living room after kicking down the front door. Peridot hovered over to her friend having been lost in thought since they'd entered the room, trying to come up with a plan. So far nothing had come to her.

Amethyst stopped pacing at the comment from Chrysi. And pounded her fists together, "Finally some action, we've been in here for _days_!" The small purple Gem complained. Peridot didn't bother to take her eyes off the monitor as she replied flatly. "Forty-six hours to be exact, and you've slept for most of it and complained for the rest of it."

"I didn't ask for any of your calutions smart one." Amethyst hissed irritably. "Let me out so I can kick some government agents!"

Amethyst made for the door and jumped in front of motion censor. The door stayed shut. "Hey this thing isn't working." Amethyst yelled. Peridot cast Amythest a brief sideways glance before returning her attention to the footage on the computer and continuing her observation on the agent's body language. "There is a difference between broken and turned off Amethyst." Peridot replied flatly.

"You turned the door off!" Amethyst screeched. "Yes. I did, and only I have the code that reactivates the motion sensor." "We leave when I say so."

"Who put _you_ in charge?!" Amethyst whined. "Garnet tell her that she's being paranoid, we can totally take these guys!" Garnet folded her arms from her place on the floor and stayed silent for a moment before another one of Amethyst's protests. "I believe that, Peridot is being quite reasonable." Garnet said in her calm voice. Pearl and Steven opted to stay silent.

Amethyst looked ready to start a full-blown argument but the mood of the room shifted as Chrysi and Peridot both went tense, The other four people in the room turned their attention to the green gems.

The agents had finally spotted the Temple door and were marching toward it. Peridot's little censor automatically revealed itself out of the door and began its automatic scan. "No Gem detected in proper loc-" Agent 27 blinked at the censor for a moment in complete shock before reaching his hand out and crushing the delicate camera between his fingers. The monitor filled with static as the camera went down.

"My camera censor!" Peridot whined. "Why do people always break my stuff?!"

A moment of uneasy static-filled silence followed as the six of them stared at the screen.

"What's your plan now genius?" Amethyst mumbled sarcastically. "I don't have one." Peridot admitted, feeling useless.

Then there was a series of rapid poundings on the door, the agents seemed to be trying to force it open. "Yeah good luck with that." Amethyst growled….the pounding stopped

"Did they hear you?" Chysi asked as she cast an uneasy glance towards the door.

Pearl scoffed and shook her head. "Don't be ridiculous, the door is one way- we can hear them but they can't hear us. It was made that way."

Chysi stood from her place at the desk and Peridot slid into her place, typing in a code that would switch the camera feed to the normal security cameras that Greg had installed.

Chysi made her way over to the door. She pressed her head against it trying to hear the faintest sound from the other side. "It sounds like one of them is talking to themselves." She reported in a whisper despite Pearl's reassurance that the agents would be able to hear them.

Peridot typed in the last line of code. "Audio channels are back on." She announced, Chrysi abandoned her post by the door and returned to glancing over her friend's shoulder.

* * *

"Okay that's it! Who let you do all of this stuff, I don't remember you asking anyone for permission to do this!" Pearl gestured wildly around the room and towards the computer monitor. Peridot took her eyes off of the monitor and turned to face Pearl. "I didn't ask for permission. No one wanted me around on missions so I used my skills elsewhere….not that I blame you for not wanting me on missions because 'I'm a Homeworld Gem I'll just try to sabotage everything'

Pearl looked stunned. "I never said that." "Even if you didn't say it to my face you thought it at one time or another."

"Don't pretend you know what I think!" Pearl snapped.

Peridot folded her arms defiantly across her chest. "Then you three need to stop acting that you know what I'm going to do just because it's what I _used_ to do."

"You said three of us."

"Because Steven has actually tried to see past my previous actions." Peridot was struggling not to explode. _Rational thoughts. Deep breaths and rational thoughts._

"Don't try to pull Steven into this." Pearl hissed.

"You just don't want to face the fact that you just might be wrong about something for once in your life."

"Oh like you're a saint. You tried to kill Steven! Multiple times!"

"Yes. I did. He's the one person out of all of you who has the most reason to hate me and yet he's the one who doesn't! Because unlike you he knows that I'm trying to change. I'm trying to learn how to admit when I've made a mistake and I'm trying to make up for it now, but I don't know why I bother when the rest of you don't trust me!"

There. It was out, her feelings were out. Another almost complete silence fell on the room.

In the heat of the argument Peridot had forgotten about the situation at hand. She turned without a sound back to the computer monitor. And saw one of the agents lift a black cell phone to his ear, a second before the audio system picked up the sound of his conversation.

* * *

"This is agent 27, requesting backup from Kennebec army base."

The words were hardly out of his mouth before Peridot had her computer scanning for information.

"I thought they'd turned that into a hospital." Pearl mused.

"Evidently part of the facility must still be active. " Peridot replied without looking at Pearl.

GPS coordinates revealed just how close the base was to their current location. Within the next hour or so, they'd have more than just a few nosy agents to worry about.

Peridot's attention was diverted back to the main monitor when she noticed something that had slipped her attention until now.

She gritted her teeth to suppress an infuriated scream.

"What?" Steven asked, speaking for the first time in a while. He stood from his place on Peridot's bed and wandered over to join Chysi in the act of looking over Peridot's shoulder.

He gasped. "Ronaldo!"

"He must of told them about me." Peridot fumed. "That's how the agents knew where to find us."

Steven groaned. "I didn't think anyone would take him seriously. How was I supposed to know he had contact with the Government!"

"It's not your fault Steven. I'm the one who scared him." Peridot attempted to reassure her friend.

"We're in a lot of trouble." Steven insisted. Peridot didn't know how to offer further reassurance after that comment. She'd been trained to know the truth and accept those truths without questions. This was one truth that she absolutely couldn't deny, now matter how much she wanted to.

* * *

Chrysi made a thoughtful humming noise and then she grabbed Peridot's shoulders and pulled Peridot backward so that Peridot's spine was pressed uncomfortably against the back of the the chair.

"Ow, what?" Peridot complained.

"Idea." Chrysi said, her tone was practically giddy as she gripped Peridot's shoulders even harder.

In response Peridot tilted her head backwards and was met with Chrysi's impossibly large grin and sparkling green eyes. "On a scale of one to dead, how much am I going to regret this plan?"

Chrysi waved her hand and scoffed. "It could go both ways, but if I had to estimate I'd say somewhere in the middle,"

"That doesn't make me feel any better Chrysi." Peridot interjected. "Yeah, yeah, whatever, move." Chrysi made a shooing motion with her hand and all but pushed Peridot out of the chair.

Amethyst snickered and Peridot shot her a glare. "What are you planning to do? I'd like to know this plan before i agree to it." Peridot complained. Chrysi shook her head, the grin still on her face. "I never asked anyone to agree with my plan. Besides you're my friend, and as such you vote for my plans by default."

"That's not a solid argument." Peridot countered.

Chrysi laughed, "Trust me."

Peridot gave a distressed moan. "The last time you said those words in a context similar to this one…"

"The experiment lab exploded yes, yes no need to bring that up, besides we didn't die or anything." Chrysi interrupted. Peridot scoffed. "I wouldn't call multiple third degree burns 'or anything' I had to regenerate inside my gem." Peridot protested. " And you were _fine,_ " Chrysi replied. "My judgement scale has gotten better." Chrysi reassured.

"This isn't experimenting with unstable isotopes, Chrysi, I don't know exactly what this is but I know it's not _that_!" "Same level of probability for success though." Chysi said.

"That doesn't make me feel better," Peridot sighed in defeat.

"Well if your done having your little panic attack, I've done what I needed to do. Don't touch anything though, some of the commands are still processing." Chrysi stood from the chair but Peridot made no more to sit back down.

"What did you do?" Peridot demanded.

"I unlocked the censor over the door."

"What! How'd you figure out the code?'

Chysi grinned as she turned to look at Peridot. "You thought that I wouldn't be able to figure out my best friend? It's going to take a lot more than a 'complex' code to confuse me. I know you. A few months of you being on a different planet isn't going to change that."

Peridot gave a defeated sigh.

* * *

Chrysi made her way toward the door, the agents weren't in the house anymore they'd gone back outside to wait for their backup.

"Where are you going?"

"Outside."

Peridot shook her head. Chysi had definitely lost it but another more pressing thought occurred to her.

"Two can play that game Chysi. I know you too and it wouldn't have taken you _that_ long to hack the electronic lock on a door. What else did you do?" Peridot asked as she followed Chrysi who had reached the door by now and continued without breaking her determined stride.

"I contacted Yellow Diamond."


	13. Chapter 13

**I love all of your reviews. Even when you're screaming at my OC. :) no hard feelings whatsoever. Chysi, girl, you messed up!**

 **It's short I know. It would have been up yesterday but I had to do an annotated bibliography on homelessness for English class… Yes that is as boring and depressing as it sounds...Anyway I worked on that and thought: 'hey let's update at a reasonable time instead of waiting a mouth like last time so that they only hate me a little bit' :)**

* * *

Peridot froze. "...You did what?" Her voice echoed softly across the room, for once there actually was complete silence in the room. Chysi didn't bother to repeat herself. "This is going to end now Peridot. We have a side," Chrysolite turned to face the angry Crystal Gems, who were standing up to confront her with fury in their eyes. Pearl hung back and shielded Steven with her body while she gripped her spear and glared daggers at Chrysolite. "I knew it! I knew we shouldn't have trusted you." She hissed at the gem accusingly.

Chrysi met Pearl's eyes with a level stare of her own. "Loyalty is the most important thing to anyone. No matter if you're a human," She looked past Pearl at Steven. "Or a Gem," She looked back to Pearl, "you just have to know where those loyalties lie." The last part of her sentence brought Chrysi's gaze back to Peridot. The slightly smaller Gem tried desperately to decode her friend's expression.

The sound of a voice cut through Peridot's inner turmoil.

A voice from outside. "We have the place surround, come out with your hands up." Without another word Chysi turned on her heel and marched out of the door, the door slid shut. Peridot stared at the closed door in stunned shock.

This didn't make any sense. Nothing added up Chysi had come looking for her… Chysi had forgiven her for what she'd done… Peridot had confessed to Chysi about not wanting to go back to Homeworld… She couldn't just turn around and walk away like that...It defied the very laws of the universe!

And yet Peridot couldn't do anything but watch as her friend just turned around and left… she blinked..as if that would somehow reverse time and none of these last few horrible seconds would ever be experienced. In this- or any alternate universe-. But the door stayed shut and Chysi stayed gone.

Peridot cast a broken, helpless glance over her shoulder at the Gems and Steven her eyes lingering the longest on Garnet.

Peridot looked at the fusion, she knew that Garnet had 'future vision' as Steven had called it. Garnet was Peridot's last hope in her fight to deny the fact that her friend had just betrayed her. Peridot simply stared; knowing that if she so much as opened her mouth to speak there would be no words to describe how she felt and she would lose the ability to speak if she so much as tried.

Garnet shook her head slowly, the gesture spoke volumes of pity, and Peridot turned her eyes back to the door in one last futile attempt to deny her friend's betrayal. Chysi didn't come back.

"...Peridot?" The voice was Steven's.

"Leave it alone Steven, you can't fix this one." Peridot replied flatly, walking back to the desk. "But maybe you can… maybe it's not what it looks like." Steven insisted.

Peridot sighed softly and clicked on the computer mouse with more force than was required.

The window that Chrysolite had hidden on the desktop revealed itself. _Communication request pending…._ The last of Peridot's ability to stay in denial was crushed.. "It's exactly what it looks like." Peridot replied bitterly. It was too late to cancel the communication, Yellow Diamond's system had ways of tracing even incomplete transmissions. It was only a matter of time before someone traced their location...and then Peridot didn't know what would happen… Nothing good.

There was only one thing that she could think of to do. Her fingers were shaking too badly to type. "Computer. Find and erase all files with the word, 'location'." It took an agonizing moment for the system to process her command while still trying to keep the security camera feeds up and display and process Chrysi's communication request at the same time. A deadpan voice responded. "...306 files found with the mention of location. Are you sure you want to delete all files?"

"Proceed." Peridot intone.

"Deletion in progress."

Meanwhile Peridot never took her eyes off of the window that was trying to finish the communication request.

… _.Communication request processed….transferring video feed to emergency communication device…._

 _What?_ Chrysolite had had a emergency Communicator this entire time! Those things could be tracked just like escape pods!

Peridot shot a glance at the door, then jumped when she heard the noise coming from both outside the door and the speakers inside the cameras. She muted the camera audio system in order to lessen the noise level.

Even with only one way into the room the noise could still be heard clearly through the door.

It sounded like people were starting to panic.

Despite the fact that it would have been smarter to simply view the footage being picked up from the cameras outside, Peridot jumped up from her chair and ran for the door.

* * *

 **You may now tell me what an evil person I am for that cliffhanger...it could have been worse I could have made you guys wait longer. I was never the kid who ripped the Band-Aid off quickly. I promise no more cliffhangers. Any theories about what's going to happen in the next chapter? I'd love to hear them.**

 **Next chapter should be up either this weekend or sometime next week. Depending on how fast I can write and how much time I actually have to do so. I have a friend coming into town so we have some catching up to do.**


	14. Chapter 14

**Well I caught up with my friend, that was fun. :)**

 **I watched the promo for the next Steven Universe event. In Too Deep. It starts May 12th! They're giving us stuff a month earlier than I thought! I'M SO READY FOR THIS GUYS! And at the same time not ready at all. (()-()) Stuff is gonna go down. LOTS of stuff. All aboard the hype-train!**

* * *

Peridot burst from the house and was met with the sight of two serious looking people. The first was a man in a black and white suit whom was wearing sunglasses, the person next to him was a woman in a white top and a black skirt. Both wore stunned expressions as they focused their attention from Chrysolite to Peridot.

"Is that the one you told us about?" The man in the black and white suit asked the teenage boy who was standing on the on the man's left side. Peridot glared at the man when she realized that he was referring to her. Then her gaze shifted to Ronaldo- she recognized him from their encounter at the school. She hated him. "Yes that's the one who revealed the invasion plan." Ronaldo replied to the man's question. "I said nothing about an invasion plan." Peridot hissed with anger, staring down the boy whom was bigger and taller than her.

"Silence." The man snapped at Peridot and Peridot turned her attention toward him, glaring at him while trying to come up with a list of possible weakness in her head. Peridot took another step toward Chrysi.

The movement didn't go unnoticed.

"Don't. Move." The agent threatened with a low growl. Peridot froze, all the while not taking her eyes off of the government agent, trying to determine just how much of a threat he posed.

She took another small step forward and the agent fumed, "I said. Don't. Move." He repeated himself. The woman entered the conversation. "We know there are more of you in the house, the boy says that there are at least three others"

Peridot didn't respond. Neither did Chrysolite. The woman looked like she was about to say something else but the other agent didn't seem to have the patience anymore.

"We know you can talk. You can't try playing dumb with us."

Peridot looked at Chrysolite for some sort of support, despite the fact of Chrysi's evident betrayal Peridot still looked to her for reassurance. Old habits died hard.

Chysi glanced at Peridot and then focused on the agents. "It is not us who lack the intelligence in this situation." Chrysi intoned, staring at the agents with fury. Agent 27 lost it at the insult.

Suddenly Chysi had a gun pointed at her forehead. Peridot flinched.

"You take that back. Extraterrestrial scum." Agent 27 snarled.

The other agent intervened. "27, it is ideal that we cause the least amount of damage to them, it's ideal that we get them back to a lab for examination." Peridot finally spoke. "We have names."

Agent 27 looked between the two gems "And what would those be?' He asked with a oddly dangerous sounding tone. "That's classified." Peridot snapped with a tone to match the agent's.

"I'm in no mood for jokes," The agent replied clearly peeved and unamused by Peridot's tone. "Tell your friend to cooperate or the first experiment I'll conduct on her is to see how many bullets she can take."

Peridot went to Chrysi.

"Good," 27 replied, pleased that his orders were being obeyed. He still had the gun trained on Chrysi. Peridot wasn't necessarily concerned about that though, she doubted it would do anything unless the agent somehow figured out that Chysi's gem could be shattered "You're going to answer some questions for me."

27 took their silence for agreement.

"What are you hiding behind your back?" 27 demanded. Peridot glanced at Chrysolite's posture, She did have her hands behind her back. _She's hiding the Communicator._ Peridot realized. "Give it to to me." Peridot demanded. Chrysi shook her head at Peridot and then glared at the agent without answering the question.

"Here's something you should know about Earth. We have this expression 'Three strikes, you're out.' " The agent, pulled the trigger of the gun once and Peridot heard the click of a bullet entering the chamber. "That's the sound of strike one. Let's not get to three, shall we?"

Chrysi looked the agent dead in the eyes.

"Next question." The agent continued, voice deadly calm. "Why _exactly_ are you here?"

It was neither of the gems who replied to the question. Ronaldo replied. "That one's obvious: They're here to hollow out the Earth and create more of the their kind.

Chrysi was too stunned to hold her tongue this time. She eyed Ronaldo with shocked suspicion. "How do you know about the Kindergartens?" Peridot elbowed Chrysi in the ribs but it was too late, The agents had heard. Two pairs of eyes widened. "The what?" both agents whispered nearly to themselves.

Chysi moved her hands slowly, keeping them behind her back but preparing the Communicator for activation. Peridot could hear the slight humming noise that the device was giving off. "Tell the rest of them to come out of the house, we know there are more, they boy says there is a small purple one, a white one and a magenta and black one. _Amethyst. Pearl. And Garnet._ Peridot placed names to the three Crystal Gems as the agent described them based on their colors.

The agent didn't mention Steven though. Was it possible that Ronaldo had neglected to mention the human-gem hybrid that Peridot had become close friends with? It didn't really matter, Peridot was relieved that the agent didn't know and he wasn't going to find out if Peridot had anything to do with it.

Just then a van appeared from the direction of the town.

A middle-aged man with a balding head and an awful sunburn exited the van.

Greg.

"What on Earth is going on here!?" The older man yelled.

"That's exactly what I'd like to know." Agent 27 said darkly.

"Is everything alright? Is Steven hurt?" Greg questioned.

Agent 15 turned her attention away from the extraterrestrials for a moment and focused on the man who had just appeared.

"Who is Steven?" the woman asked calmly.

Greg replied as any father would.

"He's my son.. He's in the house, is he alright?" Greg questioned more urgently.

15 misunderstood Greg's frantic tone.

She turned back towards Chrysi and Peridot, viewing them in a darker light than before.

"You've taken a human hostage?!" She screamed.

Peridot screamed internally for an entirely different reason. Things were spiraling out of control at an exponential rate.

"I'm going to count that as strike two." 27 warned as he tightened his grip on the gun trigger.

Chysi reacted to the threat by releasing her hold on the Communicator.

Everyone screamed and ducked to the ground. "It has a weapon!" 27 was equal parts curious and terrified of the device. _What is it? What does it do?_

The device floated into the air and expanded itself into three larger holographic diamonds.

A Pearl appeared on screen.

"Who authorized you to make this call?" The Pearl drawled. Seeming equal parts bored and annoyed.

Chysi stood up straighter and replied without missing a beat.

"I did."

The Pearl scoffed at Chysi's tone. "That isn't allowed. These Communication devices are reserved for the use of commanders and the highest elite."

"And yet I have one, I demand to speak to Yellow Diamond." Chysi folded her arms and stared at the Pearl.

Another voice entered the silence that followed. "Just give it to me already, I want to get this over with."

The voice was masqueraded with a tone of calm. The Communicator switched position and Chysi found herself looking at Yellow Diamond.

"What is it? Why have you interrupted me?"

"Chrysolite reporting in."

"Which Chrysoli-."

"Facet 2F5L. Cut: Briolette."

"What is your current location?"

"Current location- Earth."

Yellow Diamond finally made full eye contact with Chrysolite. "I already have someone assigned to the earth assignment. Why are _you_ there?"

Chysi glanced at Peridot, then at the group of cowering agents lying on the sand of the beach and staring in awe at the scene playing out before them.

"The assigned gem requested reinforcements." Chysi replied after a few breaths. "There have been…. unseen compilations."

"What sort of compilations? Are you both so incompetent that I have to come there and do everything myself?" Yellow Diamond threatened.

Agent 27 pulled himself out of his panic enough to react to this last part of the conversation. _They were requesting reinforcements! The planet_ was _going to be invaded._ He had to stop this, or in the least delay it.

He lifted his hand and kept the rest of his body on the ground, the gun was shaking in his hand when he fired, the bullet's path was towards Chrysolite, it would have been aimed at her forehead, but the gun hadn't been properly steady when 27 had fired the gun, so the path of the bullet was a fraction lower.

Chysi's throat. Her gem.

Peridot saw the bullet coming.

"No!" She pushed Chrysolite sideways and shielded the side of her friend's body with her own.

The bullet made a thumping sound as it made contact, Peridot only flinched in expression of discomfort.

 _Note to self: Bullets do hurt Gems. Levels of pain may vary depending on where the bullet makes contact._

Now it was Chrysolite to scream. "Peridot!" There was a blinding flash of light, which caused all the humans present to shield their eyes.

"You hurt us!" The new voice hissed.

Chrysoprase stood in the fading light, standing just over six feet tall. She had a full head of height on agent 27.

Chrysoprase's eyes blazed with a mixture of anger from Chrysolite and anger mixed with pain from Peridot.

The fusion gripped their saw-blade staff in their two left hands, while their two right arms clenched into fists. "We are not the enemy," Chrysoprase insisted, pointing their weapon toward the communication screen which displayed an enraged Yellow Diamond.

"It is she who deserves the hostility you have showed us."

Yellow Diamond's face twisted even further into a mask of rage. "You would do well to take those words back. Fusion, you do not want to make an enemy of me!"

Chrysoprase smiled, eyes still blazing with anger. "That is where you are wrong."

"Then so be it." Yellow Diamond replied darkly. The screen when black and started to fold up to its original size.

It turned from gray to red as the remote donating feature was activated.

Chrysoprase reached out with her weapon turned sideways. The Communication device fell into the center of the circular blade and echoed with the sound of metal on metal, Chrysoprase launched the communication device away with a flick of her wrist and it made a high pitched sound as it flew through the air and landed in the ocean far off shore, it sank below the waves and disappeared.

Chrysoprase turned her attention to the stunned humans looking at her.

Agent 27 was standing now, he still had his gun pointed at her. Though his hand was shaking worse than before.

Chrysoprase glared at him. "Drop your weapon."

27 finger inched toward the trigger. Chrysoprase mirrored his action, tightening her grip on her own weapon.

"That would be unwise." She warned softly. "I already have a very short amount of patience with you, considering the trouble you have caused. I do not wish to harm you, but I will do so in self defense."

27 didn't move.

"I will count. I believe you mentioned the acceptable amount of time to allow your enemy to cooperate was three? Was it not. Seeing as I however did not hear you say three before you used the gun against me then I shall be equally generous. You have two seconds."

27 eyes flashed with panic.

Suddenly Chrysoprase heard a voice behind her, approaching fast.

A child's voice. Panicked. "Stop don't hurt them again, you just don't understand! They really don't want to hurt you!" Steven pleaded.

Chrysoprase used her two free hands to prevent Steven from getting any closer to the agent.

"Stay away from him, Steven, this man doesn't understand what we are, we don't know him or the way he behaves. He is unpredictable."

27's voice shook with fear but his tone of voice was much the same as when he'd been demanding questions from Peridot and Chrysolite earlier.

" _I'm_ unpredictable?! You… You two just...merged!"

"We are stronger in this state. We had to protect ourselves."

27 looked them up and down and began muttering to himself. "The things we could learn from you and the rest of your kind in the experiment labs! All of the scientific breakthroughs, the technological advances we could make if we obtained just a sample of your technology, the confrontation of extraterrestrials! The press is going to explode! You'll come with us now." The agent demanded.

Chrysoprase lost her last shred of patience. She advanced quickly on the government agent and used her weapon to knock the gun out of his hands.

The gun flew out of his hands and slid across the sand of the beach before coming to rest on the edge of the shore, a wave washed over it and dragged it farther into the water.

Agent 27 blinked at the sharp edges of the saw that was suddenly much closer to him, he thought it was a miracle that the sharp edges of the weapon hadn't caused him to lose any of his fingers on the hand that had just been holding his gun.

"What happened to counting?" He snarled.

"We are not going anywhere with you! We have said it before and we will say it once more. We are not your enemy. We will assist you of our own free will, we have turned our back on everything we have known in order to protect you against a greater threat. Do not make us regret that choice."

Agent 27 swallowed loudly and took a slow step backwards.

Chrysoprase turned to agent 15 and Ronaldo. "All of you would do well to gain a better understanding about what things are outside of your planet. You have a desire to learn, but your arrogant approach towards the knowledge you seek has led you to assume and that you know what we will do. True that we were here to destroy the earth. But exposure to this planet- while not always pleasant," Chrysoprase glared at agent 27 one more time. "Has made us start to consider things from a different perspective, it would be wise of you to do the same."

"People already know you exist. Some people will panic! They think you are here to hurt them! " agent 15 insisted.

"That is the consequence that you must must deal with for exposing us to the rest of humanity the way that you did. You must do something for us now, you will go back and tell them that you either didn't find anything or you must convince as many people as possible that we are here to protect them from the coming threat of our superior. We no doubt will need human insistence to make her see reason or to overthrow her. We would bet the most likely probability on the second outcome."

"You best keep in touch with us then." 15 said as nonchalantly as possible. "We will no doubt find a method of communication," Chrysoprase replied. "It would be best if you leave."

27 looked at 15 with an open mouth. "Are you seriously siding with them? What happened to making history?"

15 shook her head and folded her arms, 27 really was the most thick headed person she'd met. "I'd say we did make history, we just made peace negotiations with extraterrestrials and learned about an high probability of an _actual_ impending invasion. I might offer you as a sacrifice to their leader when she gets here. I still have a bone to pick with you for telling our supervisor that I watch cat videos."

27 just stared at this coworker at a loss for words.

The agents retreated, Chrysoprase defused and Greg was able to go ask Steven if he was alright.

"What were you thinking contacting Yellow Diamond?!" Peridot screamed at Chrysi.

Chysi took the verbal blow without flinching. "Simple. The humans were scared of us because they didn't know how many of us there was, or how dangerous we were. I came up with the solution of introducing them to a single enemy. In war it is ideal to eliminate generals rather than soldiers because generals have higher status. Remove them and the soldiers would not have anyone to give them orders. Chances of victory increase."

"Logical plan but that doesn't change the fact that she's coming." Peridot said gravely.

Chysi knew that there chances of success were miniscule, but they were still there.

"Then we'd best enjoy the calm before the storm."


End file.
